


wipe the stardust from your eyes

by Shampain



Category: Captain Marvel (2019)
Genre: Attempted Suicide, Backstory, Blood and Gore, F/F, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Jealousy, Minor Character Death, Starforce days, Violence, War Crimes, the Minnvers is unrequited, this might end up really depressing sorryyyyyy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-04-05 19:36:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19046980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shampain/pseuds/Shampain
Summary: Minn-Erva meets Yon-Rogg by happenstance when she's just six years old. A happy accident, some might say.Chaos, Minn-Erva says now. Complete chaos.





	1. war week

She remembered when she first met him: six years old, on a trip to Hala with her parents. They had gone during one of the more popular yearly festivals in the Kree Empire, War Week. It was a festival celebrating the hard work of the Kree's military members, and there were all sorts of displays and presentations and events happening. It was popular for Kree to come in from border planets just for the celebrations, and during that week both Upper and Lower Hala was bursting.

And Minn-Erva? Minn-Erva was definitely something of an excitable child, curious and exploring and always up to mischief. Her parents knew this and they kept an eye on her, always; and her brother Trakk was responsible for her at every waking moment, something which Minn-Erva only appreciated when she was young, and then near the end – when she was still young, yes, too young.

In any case, as her parents entered the one square full of guns and tanks and a landed battle ship that tours were coming in and out of, with children laughing and war anthems playing and vendors hawking souvenirs – amidst it all they said, 'Minn-Erva, wouldn't you like to go inside the ship?' and discovered she was long gone.

She was in a building full of nice, cool air, with all sorts of people rushing about who didn't seem to notice her. People in uniforms, people in jackets, people in leathery-looking outfits. The floors and walls gleamed, and she scented the spice of fresh sweat, sharp and musky. Everything was a dream.

She stopped at a doorway and tried to read the words on the plaque beside it, but it was long and she didn't know some of the glyphs. She reached for the handle when a voice stopped her.

“Oh, don't go in there.”

It was a young man in a simple uniform, all soft lines, his hair thick and curly and his eyes a gleaming yellow. He was shaking his head. “Only top officers are allowed in there,” he said. “And you look a little too short to be a top officer just yet.”

She knew him.

“You're Yon-Rogg!” she'd squeaked. He was beautiful, so beautiful; to Minn-Erva's young eyes he looked a god, like the Supreme Intelligence must look like, to those lucky few who got to speak with it. _I wouldn't be scared of the Supreme Intelligence if it looks like him_ , she'd thought.

“Yes,” he said, seeming surprised, as if he didn't know that (but, of course, he was probably just shocked at being recognized at all, even with his face splashed across half the city, even by a child). “You know, I have a feeling you shouldn't be here. Where are your guardians?”

“You got through the Academy with the highest scores in a whole century,” Minn-Erva said, ignoring him.

He narrowed his eyes at her, but he was smiling. “How did you know that?”

“My brother told me.”

“Is your brother a spy?”

“No!” Minn-Erva blurted out, horrified.

“Alright,” Yon-Rogg said, looking satisfied. “I believe you. I know you must be a credit to the Empire. Come,” he held out his hand. It was rough and dry and scratchy but warm. “Let's find your guardians.”

It was one of her father's favourite stories to tell, how he had been rushing through the square, trying to find his wayward little daughter (who looked like every other small pig-tailed blue child on Hala, of which there were many at the festival). How he had heard 'Papa!' and he turned with a sigh of relief that became amazement to see her standing with Yon-Rogg, who had not three week's earlier single-handedly prevented the assassination attempt of one of Hala's most admired war chiefs.

How Yon-Rogg had handed her over as her mother and brother barrelled up, looking starstruck. There had been people in the crowd, staring, noticing the war hero in their midst.

“Thank you so much, sir,” her mother said.

Yon-Rogg had looked startled at the deference. He was still too young, then. Too young for the world that was about to swallow him whole (because he was, because Hala chewed him up, spit out his bones, watched him put himself together again, and then repeated it the next night.) When you were young, and beautiful, and fearsome, but too naive – that was when the machine got to work.

“When the time comes and she asks to go to the Academy,” he had said, looking down at Minn-Erva, “let her join. For the good of all Kree.”

 

The worst part, though, was what happened after, when they got back home. Her mother _wrote a letter_ to Yon-Rogg; you could still contact him, back then, as he was someone who was still part of the public, someone who didn't yet belong entirely to the war machine of the Kree.

_Thank you for keeping an eye on my Minn-Erva last week. She talks about you all the time now and she watches the news with us to see if you are ever mentioned. Her father and I were going to send our son to the Academy, and now I see we must send her too. Thank you for inspiring this family and showing us the way to honour._

Apparently Yon-Rogg wrote back, but Minn-Erva never saw the letter. It wasn't important. What was important was that when she went to the Academy years later, and her name began appearing in the class records, he remembered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from '99' by Barns Courtney.
> 
> Just fussing around with some character development, and wanting more depth for Minn-Erva.


	2. blue

Her mouth tasted like metal and dust and she had been awake for over thirty-six hours, with a solid twenty-two of them in her battle suit. Despite the sweat-wicking garments she wore beneath she was grimy and dirty, and sweat had dried in her hair and turned it brittle; she felt it at the back of her neck. Every single inch of her shuddered and shook and yet she could not be bothered with it, was too engrossed in her new subject.

Minn-Erva stood over the human, watching her. The woman was strapped down to the table – for her own safety if nothing else, as the small shuttle ship they were using for the covert mission shuddered and shook whenever they went through a jump point – and she was barely moving, but the machinery around her hummed quietly and serenely, temporarily bolted to the floor.

They were in what passed for the medic bay in the shuttle, and she had pulled out and used as many of the limited items available as possible. She had set up a monitor hooked up to the human's heartbeat and an intravenous source to feed her a nutritional drip that appeared to match with her species' needs, at least in a rudimentary way. Minn-Erva had bandaged her wounds as best she could, and after that it was time to simply wait it out.

The woman had been unconscious for hours, now, and with the time given to her to mull over the situation Minn-Erva wasn't sure if bringing her with them would do any good. But as Yon-Rogg had pointed out it was the best they _could_ do, in keeping with the Supreme Intelligence's orders. With the energy core destroyed, the vestiges hiding within the human were the last possible source.

If she managed to survive absorbing it, anyway.

Yon-Rogg was flying, leaving Minn-Erva to watch, and think, and worry. It was just the two of them, a pairing the Supreme Intelligence preferred for missions of the most covert nature. While most missions gave her a thrill, a sense of purpose, she was left feeling adrift and confused over this and she wondered if Yon-Rogg felt the same. She propped her chin in her hand, watching the human breathe. She was pretty, she decided, underneath all the muck. And a warrior in her own right, if the muscles in her arms and shoulders – which Minn-Erva had felt through her clothing as she got her onto the table – were anything to go by.

“I wonder if you're a fighter?” Minn-Erva asked aloud, quietly. “I guess we'll see.”

 

She wasn't.

Or at least, she wasn't enough of one. They were two hours away from Hala, and her heartbeat started to drop.

Minn-Erva leaped up and opened a cupboard, pulling out the electropulse pack, unzipping it to take out the machine inside. She tore open the woman's shirt and jacket, barring her chest, and attached the nodes to her skin.

She flipped the switch, waiting for the light to turn from red to blue. It beeped solemnly, and _then_. Blue. She pressed the button.

The human jerked on the table. Her heartbeat started, then dropped again.

“Commander!” she shouted, resetting the charge, waiting for it to yet again turn blue. _Zap_. “Yon-Rogg!”

He burst into the room. “She's dying,” she said, before he could ask.

“Keep going,” he ordered.

“We don't know if her heart-”

“Do it.”

Again, the light turned blue. Again, Minn-Erva flooded the human's system with electricity. A stutter, and then a flatline. Minn-Erva shook her head, turning to Yon-Rogg.

“She's dead,” she said, even though it was obvious. Her commander was staring at the human, frowning, no doubt considering how much worse this was – for all of them, really. The energy core and Mar-Vell had been lost for so long and now there they were, with a dead body that was less useful than the table it was laying on.

“Then this mission is a failure,” he said, finally.

Failure. _Failure failure failur_ e. A dangerous word, a frightening word. One which she knew haunted Yon-Rogg, and her heart jumped.

“There might be some of the power left inside her...” she began, and then he raised his hand. His expression had changed. He reached for the zipper for his suit, at his throat.

“Sir,” she said, startled. “What are you-”

“Take out the IV,” he ordered.

She hurried to do so. He began to shuck off the larger pieces of his armour and then peeled his suit down to his waist, tugged up the sleeve of the standard issue shirt they all wore beneath their uniforms. He began to swab his forearm. She gaped.

“Seriously?” she asked.

“Get the equipment,” he said, his tone clipped. “We don't have time for second-guessing, Minn-Erva.”

“I'll do it, then.”

“Absolutely not,” he said, with the ghost of a self-effacing smirk on his lips. “Can't have the blood of a true, blue Kree in her veins.”

Minn-Erva scowled – the pink versus blue debated never ceased to irritate her, and she hated whenever he mentioned it like that, as if it didn't bother him. But she'd heard enough mutterings about how Yon-Rogg didn't know his place to know it was all shit.

But she did as she was told, pulling out the equipment. He was prepping the human, disinfecting her skin. She lay limp and grey on the table and Minn-Erva still didn't see a point in a transfusion, but what more did they have to lose?

They worked quickly, setting up for the operation. They were probably breaking some sort of Kree law but, then again, Yon-Rogg never seemed to be too concerned about that when it came to getting the job done, and she knew the Supreme Intelligence tended to be on his side about this. She only hoped this would work in their favour.

Kree blood in another species had a tendency to backfire, but apparently Yon-Rogg thought it was worth the risk. “She's already dead,” Minn-Erva said. “But if she wasn't, this might kill her.”

Yon-Rogg had a strange look on his face. “It will either bring her back, or it won't,” he said. “But she's strong, I think. We need to get her breathing again.”

“Then let's do it,” she said.

 

(It was like pouring gasoline onto a fire.)

 

Minn-Erva touched her finger and thumb together, which was wet with the human's blood. It was red, and it was the last time it would be red, as Yon-Rogg's blood asserted its dominance in the human's system.

She was sitting in the pilot's seat; it was his turn to watch the patient, and she was fine with that. Fear had curdled in Minn-Erva's stomach, making her feel sick. The woman had come back to life, yes, but it was terrible and horrible and she had thrashed and screamed and sparks had come out of her mouth, and the shuttlecraft began to shake, and Minn-Erva was certain that everything was going to explode.

And then there had been silence, quieter than the depths of space.

Yon-Rogg's face was still frozen in her mind; a look of relief mixed with pride and satisfaction, which had almost disturbed her. But they would be okay, now, the both of them. Hopefully. They would know soon, once he communed with the Supreme Intelligence.

Then everything would be back to normal again.

She licked the blood from her fingertips and her heart shuddered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at vodkertonic.tumblr.com where I spend lots of time brainstorming how to ruin the lives of my favourite characters.


	3. rainy season

It had been raining since morning, not unusual for the season; it was warm and tropical and poured down from the sky. The noise was soothing, a distant drum that was still secondary to the calls of birds and the rustling of the trees and plants that shifted and shuddered underneath the onslaught.

Minn-Erva's hair was frizzing out from the braids that kept the hair off the side of her face that she used to sight down a scope. She didn't bother to fix or tame it because it didn't matter; they were no longer working as their mission had been completed. Their vessel had been damaged, though, so they had been awaiting pickup and transport for the past fourteen hours.

The village they sheltered in was small, and they had set up in the local military quarters that kept the peace. Minn-Erva did her best to be polite to the men and women there, but she couldn't help but curl her lip. They were the lowest on the rung of the Kree Empire's forces, for good reason – too unskilled to move up, or too scared to leave home and go to the capital, or a myriad of other things, kept them low in her esteem.

Vers didn't care, though; she spoke pleasantly and cheerfully with everyone. And, unfortunately, with the headquarters being so small, she and Vers were sharing a room together until their shuttle arrived, so Minn was not saved from the human's social nature.

The other woman entered just then, as if knowing Minn-Erva was thinking about her. Her blonde hair frizzed around her head and, like Minn, was out of uniform, wearing a pair of grey slacks and a dark blue shirt. She held a tin cup in each hand, which was steaming.

She was trying to be friendly again. Minn-Erva wished she would stop.

“I brought you this,” Vers said, holding one cup out to Minn-Erva, who was sitting at a spindly table cleaning out her rifle. It was scattered in parts over the tabletop, like the remains of a particularly enjoyable meal.

Minn almost said no, until she caught a waft of the liquid and realized Vers had not brought her tea, but hot wine. She took it.

“Att-Lass said transpo should be here in a couple of hours,” Vers commented, throwing herself back on the bed. They had slept together there last night, crammed and uncomfortable, the room too warm and humid to be comfortable. The situation had been the same with the men and the conversation over the breakfast table had been hearty and amused despite the entire team's lack of sleep. Apparently, Bron-Char had tried to kill Yon-Rogg in his sleep when the commander, also dreaming, had muttered something aloud. “No wonder you are not yet married or mated,” Korath had observed, flatly. Att-Lass had barely been able to contain his laughter.

Minn-Erva had hated it, laying next to Vers, an uncomfortable squirm in her stomach and her heart in her throat. She had so badly wanted to roll over, to make a physical connection, which would have been _so easy_ in the tiny space. Instead she had kept herself apart, each nerve ending firing if Vers even got the slightest bit close.

When the other woman, in her sleep, had shifted and her shoulder had pressed against Minn's, she had elbowed Vers sharply and said, more harshly than she intended, “Move it.”

She had. Minn-Erva cursed to herself.

“Do you often drink in the mornings?” Minn-Erva asked, sipping her wine. It was sharp and dry, but some cane sugar had been added. By Vers, maybe.

“I drink whenever I want,” Vers said, before adding, as if aware of how cocky that sounded, “within reason.”

Minn-Erva grunted in reply and went back to her rifle. She didn't know why Vers was seeking her out, when she just as easily could be out and about with Att-Lass. The pair of them ran around like the children they were. Att-Lass had been on their team less than six months when Vers finally joined, by order of the Supreme Intelligence, and it was natural for the two of them to bond as the newest members. Off duty they had a tendency to walk around attached at the hip, getting up to trouble in Lower Hala where no one knew who they were.

Vers sipped her drink. Minn-Erva could feel her eyes on her even with her head bent, beginning to piece her gun back together.

“Thanks,” Vers said, suddenly.

Blinking, Minn looked up at her. “Thanks?” she repeated, confused.

“For yesterday.”

Yesterday, when Minn-Erva had lodged a bullet right between the eyes of a skrull that nearly gutted Vers from behind. “You don't have to thank me,” she said.

Vers shrugged, self-consciously, it seemed. “I know.”

A silence. Uncomfortable for the human, probably, but Minn-Erva preferred it. Her gun was now in three pieces, which she left as it was. It had to be kept partially disassembled, to be bagged and transported.

“What?” Minn-Erva finally asked. She looked up to see the blonde blinking at her in surprise, and she sighed. “I can _hear_ you thinking. What did you want to ask me?”

Suddenly shy, Vers looked down at her wine. “Is it true you had a brother?”

“Yes.”

Vers looked taken aback at the answer, delivered without complaint or even feeling. She seemed to roll her next question over in her mouth for a moment, as if unsure if she wanted to press her luck. “How did it happen?”

“Assassinated.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Not as sorry as I am,” Minn-Erva said, without thinking. “They were aiming for me. They missed.”

The conversation was over. Vers drained her cup and laid back on the bed, closing her eyes. She likely hadn't slept very much the night before, either. Minn-Erva said nothing. She let her sleep until the transpo came.


	4. starforce

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dark and deals with death and attempted suicide; feel free to skip if it will trigger you.

Minn-Erva remembered that day, not in its entirety but bits and pieces of it, images so vivid she could see them against the back of her eyelids when she tried to sleep. The drooping of the military flags in the incessant heat. The sheen of sweat on the back of the general's neck as he addressed the crowd. And of course, the blood, that slap of toxic blue that covered her hands and face and got into her mouth.

She was one of the best snipers the Kree military had and even in that moment she had admired the shot, in a sort of perverse, distant way. It was a head shot, one that pummelled clean through the skull on one side of the head, slicing through brain matter before lodging itself on the other side.

People often mistook Trakk and Minn-Erva for twins: similar faces, similar builds. But it was the fact that he was the same height that took him down, as he suddenly stepped in close to Minn-Erva to embrace her and congratulate her, the anthems and the crowds noisy and joyful around them in response to _this_ , this peak military display their superiors had decided to hold on one of the Kree border planets.

It was arrogance mixed with power, Minn-Erva understood, that had set the scene that day. It was the endless machinery of Kree propaganda that had Minn-Erva and other rising military stars paraded out on stage and celebrated with cheers and shouting and drew the ire of a rebel cell that thought now, _now_ would be a great time to send a message.

Trakk had stepped in front of her, smiling; she turned to him and held him close. The bullet meant for her skull exploded into his, and he was dead before Minn-Erva even understood what had happened.

She vaguely recalled being pushed off the stage and into the now-panicking crowd before striking her head and blacking out. The person who had pushed her was a former classmate; she learned he'd died almost immediately after.

At the end of the day the rebels were rounded up and executed in a great show of power and restraint, and after weighing the losses against their gains the war generals and publicity agents and marketing moguls had decided it wasn't such a bad loss. They'd even got lucky, actually, that their new favourite contender for rising stardom survived.

“What about the brother?” she heard her nurse say out in the hospital hallway.

The reply had been dismissive. “He was just an engineer for the warships,” a woman said. “Who cares?”

 

The Kree were still very racist, at least among the old guard who refused to die off, and those in the ruling class were overjoyed by Minn-Erva – a double winner with her beautiful blue skin and deadly skill set. Without her realizing they had already begun to plan her career for her: she would be the beginning of a new era and would inspire hordes of Kree children to join the war effort, to give their lives to protect their livelihood.

They might have been right, if it weren't for Yon-Rogg.

There was a reason Yon-Rogg had been in Starforce for so long instead of moving up the chain, and when Minn-Erva realized it she was shocked that she hadn't figured it out sooner. Yon-Rogg had no power as a commander, politically, and he was kept there to serve. He was not, nor would he ever be, a member of the ruling class.

It turned out that that didn't matter. Yon-Rogg knew exactly what he wanted and what he was doing, a fact that irritated his fellow officers often but at some points had them flying into a rage when he pulled rank. Such a thing occurred seven days after Minn-Erva had lost her brother. She had seen Trakk since then, though. Supreme Intelligence took his shape, and she'd needed the SI's blessing to return to active duty. She didn't know that as soon as she was cleared for return, Yon-Rogg had set his plot into motion.

Keeping secrets from the Supreme Intelligence was difficult but now, Minn-Erva learned, not impossible. The SI seemed pleased with her healing and congratulated her on her strength and courage. That afternoon she took a shower, combed her hair, and thought about her brother's face telling her that she was lucky she had the opportunity to continue to serve.

After graduating with top honours, Minn-Erva had been installed in one of the better military apartments in Upper Hala. She put on a robe, belting it around her waist and, hair still wet, walked over to the window and opened it. She climbed up onto the ledge and looked out.

It would be a long fall, but shorter than the pain of living a life without her brother.

There was a knock at the door; she ignored it. The breeze from outside, and the sun, was beginning to dry pieces of her hair in wisps. She closed her eyes, and saw bits of her brother's skull. Her apartment door opened and the ghost from her past walked in.

“Admiring the view?” she heard Yon-Rogg say.

“For a moment,” Minn-Erva replied, finding it fitting that one of the most celebrated soldiers in the military was suddenly there, to witness her breakdown. But this was it, she realized. He'd caught her. She may as well just let herself fall, for she would never recover from this: she was not acting in a suitable way, it would go on her records, everyone would know. They would look at her and see the instability in her eyes and her dreams would be dashed, on top of everything else. _I'd rather be a smear of blood on a sidewalk_ , she thought.

Instead Yon-Rogg said, “You're being transferred,” and held out a datapad to her, as if she wasn't standing on the window ledge. She reached out and took it, looking down at the screen. _Starforce – Yon-Rogg – AER675-12_

Starforce. It was a dream come true.

“I'm afraid I won't be able to make it,” she said, holding it back out to him. He didn't take it and Minn-Erva, full of rage and grief and insubordination, dropped it to the ground. He made no move to pick it up. She turned back towards the view.

“It was me, you know,” Minn-Erva said, finally, gazing down at the shades of Lower Hala below.

“What was you?”

“I invited him,” she said. “My brother. He wasn't supposed to be there but I invited him. We were going to go out for drinks after.”

He said nothing, for a moment.

“Get down from the window, Minn-Erva. That's an order.”

She tried not to laugh; if she did, she knew it would turn hysterical. “Why, are you going to reprimand me?”

“Come down for now,” he said. “The window will still be here tomorrow.”

She turned to look at him and saw him standing there, hand outstretched, face so painfully patient she wanted to beat the expression off of his face. _Don't you feel things?_ She wanted to scream, but she didn't, because she knew he must, or he wouldn't be there.

She let him help her down. Then she punched him in the face, hard enough to blacken his eye and purple his brow bone. She was not reprimanded.


End file.
